What you been listening to this week? (4 Viewers)

[hugh]

Smog - Julius Caesar. I think Bill Callahan must have been having some sort of breakdown while making this. It sounds mostly terrible.

Smog - Red Apple Falls. Genius.

Belle and Sebastien - random tracks on Spotify. I like them better than I used to but still not 100% convinced.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs - Mauve Dawn
Tirath Singh Nirmala & Richard Youngs - self-titled or untitled album
Richard Youngs - Like A Neuron
There is/was a sale on at No Fans Records — Home so I picked up a few LPs that I never really wanted all that much.
Mauve Dawn is quite strange, austere electronic stuff. Quite good but inessential.
The Tirath Singh Nirmala one is very good - lots of flutey sounds, and bells and chiming things. There was a little note included warning me that the glitches on side 2 are meant to be there.
Like A Neuron is surprisingly good (susprising because I expected it to be completely shit). Dense electronica, blubbering synths, vague rhythms/ pulses etc. You wouldn't really dance to it.

Modern Talking - Ready For Romance
It's the same song over and over again but it's a good song.

Modern Talking - In The Middle Of Nowhere
Beautiful. A bit more variety to be heard from track to track on this one, and just a lot better in general.

Billy Eidi - Guy Sacre: Works for piano Vol. 2
First listen to this nice enough piano music, dunno if I'd be bothered listening again.

Spontaneous Music Ensemble - Withdrawal
ok

Sonic Youth - Goodbye 20th Century
I really like this one

Lal & Norma Waterson - A True Hearted Girl
Fantastic

Lal Waterson & Oliver Knight - Once In A Blue Moon
Never heard this before, an ok collaboration of Lal and her son. Probably won't listen to this again

Michael Chapman - Fully Qualified Survivor
I like this album but I only put it on because I couldn't think what else to listen to

Pierre Cochereau - Dupré
Some of Dupré's organ work. Mostly a bit too Mass-y for me

Ironomi - Ironomi
Boring, wishy washy, noodly piano/ambient stuff. Alright for when you don't want to be distracted by whatever sounds you have on

Hiroshi Yoshimura - Music For Nine Post Cards
Excellent, wishy washy, noodly piano/ambient stuff.

The Incredible String Band - The Big Huge
My favorite ISB album

AMM - Live In Allentown USA
Excellent

Miles Davis - Live In Europe 1967 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 - Paris
Excellent

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

No way did you listen to all those coil albums!

Did too! It's been wall to wall Coil this week as I've been working from home.

 

[Lili Marlene]

FFS - FFS - eh, on first listen I like about 2 songs. I'm blaming Franz Ferdinand since their last 2 albums have been a total chore to listen to.

The Jam - The Gift - I was thinking about how actually amazing it is that Weller broke up the Jam when they were at the absolute pinnacle of their fame. You'd never get that now.

It's quite an album to go out on, they were really pushing their sound on it. Even the calypso song is fairly enjoyable for the piece of terrible that is is in reality. There's a song on this called Carnation that fans allegedly love, I assume people like it because it foreshadows the dad-rock boringness he'd be doing 15 years later, but it's terrible, TERRIBLE. Anyway, I didn't skip it because Town Called Malice is the next song and it makes what is already the best song ever even more amazing. Christ, Town Called Malice is great - "struggle after struggle, year after year"

Florence + the Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful - gave it a cursory listen. She's a little less waily on this one and, as a result, it's less distinctive; the music could be any of a range of generic indie bands. The songs are decent though, big BIG choruses. Can't remember the lyrics being up to much but I wasn't paying much attention.


The B-52's - The B-52's - As genius as ever. I prefer Wild Planet but still. Most of the songs are just a list of things: girls names, dances, fictional geographical features, beach paraphernalia ... but it's all in the delivery, the rhythm and the better-than-everyone-else-ever guitar-ing.

 

[Unicron]

I've been listening to Ten for the first time in forever. Also listened to some of the proto-Pearl Jam bands for the first time ever, Green River and Mother Love Bone (both shite, mother love bone especially, LA riff rock like Jane's Addiction)

 

[Lili Marlene]

I've been listening to Ten for the first time in forever. Also listened to some of the proto-Pearl Jam bands for the first time ever, Green River and Mother Love Bone (both shite, mother love bone especially, LA riff rock like Jane's Addiction)

Mother Love Bone are kind of funny, they're probably more fun to read about than listen to though.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Just adding

80's AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING


and an unexpected Jens Lekman sample source

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I'm going to try that Greg Phillinganes album tomorrow

Miles Davis - Live In Europe 1967 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 - Karlsruhe & Stockholm
Excellent

Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain
Classic miles

Cecil Taylor And Buell Neidlinger - The Complete Candid Recordings Of Cecil Taylor And Buell Neidlinger
Buell Neidlinger is the bassist apparently. Why he gets a major mention when all he does is endlessly play those walking jazz basslines for the 4 cds I don't know. Still, good stuff, very enjoyable.

Cecil Taylor - Conquistador!
Good but goes on a bit

David Jackson, Guy Evans, Hugh Banton & Friends - The Long Hello
A Van der Graaf side project that I've never listened to for some reason. Jazzy, unexpectedly polite but quite enjoyable. I'd probably dismiss it as rubbish if I didn't adore VdGG.

Hugh Banton - The Goldberg Variations
Another VdGG solo thing I've never bothered with until now since I've never enjoyed anything by Bach that I've heard. Don't like this either. Hugh Banton designs fake church organs for a living although I think he used to do real ones too, I'm not sure. This sounds like an 80s keyboard playing one of it's pre-programmed classical pieces with the speed set a bit too high. I read an interview in which he said that he was constructing the whole thing with midi as you couldn't physically play it the way he wanted to do it (he is pretty nifty on the keyboard). I hoped he was aiming for something a bit more exciting than this nonsense.

Guy Evans & Nic Potter - The Long Hello Vol 2
Jesus christ. This is the worst shit I ever heard in my life.

Van der Graaf Generator - Trisector
VdGG had a bit of a reunion, made a decent enough album, toured and fell out with their two-saxes-at-the-same-time player and decided not to go their separate ways again just in order not to be letting the fall-out get the better of them. A shockingly patchy album resulted with a number of must-skip songs. A couple of them could only ever have sounded good if they were on The Long Hello Vol 2. One of them has lyrics about dancing around a handbag (another has lyrics about Jack and Gillian taking to the dancefloor), another sounds like a shite band doing an instrumental version of some shitty 80s rock classic down the pub. These lads were in or approaching their 60s at this stage. The rest is pretty good, some really good songs marred by cheesy over-dubbing. The live versions are all far better. Thankfully their next album was terrific!

Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On The Edge Of Town
I love it.

David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
Very good.

Pete Wylie - Sinful
The title track isnt as good as I thought it was when I was 9, the second track starts off like the Glenroe theme - I stopped it there.

Pumice - Magnedisk Recordings of Gfrenzy Songs
"Recorded live in Mono on the National Magna Fax magnetic recording turntable in Sandringham, Auckland on 14 May 2009." This might be why it sounds all warped and badly pitched and primitive even by pumice standards. Impossible to enjoy, I turned it off after a few "tunes".

Pauline Oliveros - Accordion & Voice
At least I already knew this was beautiful. It settled my nerves a bit after all that shite I had on all day.

Container - LP
Recent lp. More shite.

Richard Youngs - Sapphie
Just beautiful. This never fails to calm my nerves.

Richard Youngs - River Through Howling Sky
A kinda "blues" album but not really. "Red Cloud Singular" is a fantastic 24 minute career highlight (if you like 24 minute dirges that don't really change at all as they progress)

Richard Youngs - Beyond The Valley Of Ultrahits
His "POP" album, or so he seems to think. It's kinda catchier than usual but business as usual too. Nice.

Richard Youngs - Under Stellar Stream
Beautiful mellow minimal keyboardy songs

Richard Youngs - Festival
Mainly worth it for "The Sea Is Madness" - 18 glorious minutes of something-or-other, I'm not sure what. The rest of it is alright too, though.

Richard Youngs - The Naive Shaman
My first listen to this since around the time it came out. I'm reminded of why I drifted so far from it - it's just not that good (although it's not as bad as I thought...)

 

[nooleen]

jaysus
i don't know how yourself and cornu can pay attention to that many different albums in a day. i reach new stuff saturation after about 3 or 4 records and need to listen a load of times before they start to sink in.

might try listening to back-to-back new (to me) albums from dawn to dusk one of these days and see how it strikes me

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I'm on the dole, live alone and never watch tv so it's music from dawn to dusk for me.I just write whatever comes into my head at the time of writing since we're not allowed to post lists any more.

 

[pete]

I've been listening to Ten for the first time in forever. Also listened to some of the proto-Pearl Jam bands for the first time ever, Green River and Mother Love Bone (both shite, mother love bone especially, LA riff rock like Jane's Addiction)

Mother Love Bone are kind of funny, they're probably more fun to read about than listen to though.

ah here

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[nooleen]

that's feckin' appalling

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

Mother Love Bone were rubbish,Green River were great.

 

[Lili Marlene]

I got stuck in 1982 for a while

Orange Juice - You Can't Hide Your Love Forever - I found this on vinyl over the weekend, first time i've played it in a while. Surprised to find its actually better than I remember it being.

Haircut 100 - Pelican West - ripped off Orange Juice and had much more success. The songs are simpler and the album has more filler than the Orange Juice one but at its best its really top shelf stuff. Shameless though.

Culture Club - Kissing to be Clever - their debut album. Has Do you Really Want to Hurt me on it but generally speaking it's flimsy, forgettable stuff. Was only listening cos i'd never tried it before.

The Clash - Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg - Mick Jones 'original' double album mix of Combat Rock (or at least someone's approximation based on the known tracklist). You can hear how it makes a certain kind of sense and has a flow of its own but I think Combat Rock works a bit better overall. The unreleased at the time tracks are good though.

I then jumped across the pond and listened to some New York stuff from the same year:

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Message - surprisingly has a lot in common musically with all that new pop stuff happening at the same time in the UK. Lots of bright sounding horns and funky basslines. Two bizarre straight up soul ballads on side 2. Generally great though.

Kid Creole & the Coconuts - Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places - a classic New York album allegedly. A high point in his career anyway. Escort are the only modern band I can think of who are mining this stuff for inspiration.

 

[nooleen]

Kid Creole & the Coconuts - Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places - a classic New York album allegedly. A high point in his career anyway. Escort are the only modern band I can think of who are mining this stuff for inspiration.

Dr Buzzard and Kid Creole satirised the high life at a time when America was ravaged by recession. "It was huge satire," says Darnell, an astute observer of pop who has a masters degree in English. He intended to become a teacher – a fact that belies his reputation, in the guise of Kid Creole, as a zoot-suited wise guy surrounded by scantily clad Coconuts. "I'm a capitalist and I love money, but originally we frowned on it – the idea of the elegant elite. Then we became the thing we made fun of."

Kid Creole: 'I'm not a party man any more' | Music | The Guardian

 

[Lili Marlene]

What are you getting at?

Just generally pointing to a good interview?

 

[nooleen]

yes

i was trying to find that one kid creole song i know (the one that sounds like prince) and i found that instead

the quote is just an interesting snippet

 

[Lili Marlene]

Grand, just checking. Someone really should write a book about the ZE records scene, or at least the latin disco side of it. As usual there's loads out there about the no-wave noise stuff (i.e. the white people) but the mutant disco stuff (i.e. the not white people) is a million times more interesting.


(edit: possibly this covers it? And there's also a few pages in a shitty, shitty chapter in Rip it Up and Start Again but we won't include that)

 

[Scientician 0.8]

Grand, just checking. Someone really should write a book about the ZE records scene, or at least the latin disco side of it. As usual there's loads out there about the no-wave noise stuff (i.e. the white people) but the mutant disco stuff (i.e. the not white people) is a million times more interesting.

It's the book you were born to write.

 

[Theseus Mock]

The B-52's - The B-52's -

Kate Pierson (the red-head) released her first solo record earlier this year. Inoffensive pop record, Sia co-produced a lot of the tracks from it. Album cover looks like it was put together by a 10 year old in MS paint.

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